The Vagus nerve (VN) is the longest cranial nerve in the human body. It contains motor and sensory fibers and, because it passes through the neck and thorax to the abdomen, has the widest distribution in the body. Also, it contains somatic and visceral afferent fibers, as well as general and special visceral efferent fibers.
The Vagus interface the medulla oblongata with parasympathetic control of the heart, lungs, and digestive tract and is involved in the regulation of multiple systems.
Due to this wide influence on multiple systems and its important role in maintaining homeostasis, partially neuro homeostasis.
The Vagus nerve includes a sensory “auricular” branch that innervates the external ear. The upper, smaller part of the external ear lying above the crus helicis of the external ear called the cymba conchae, it is innervated exclusively by this branch; other regions of the external ear receive afferent innervation by this branch solely, or shared with other nerves, e.g., the posterior and inferior walls of the ear canal and the cavity of the concha.
The rationale of tVNS on the ear (transcutaneous auricular VNS, taVNS) is based on anatomical studies demonstrating that certain parts of the ear area (cymba conchae) have afferent VN distribution. According to the “bottom-up” mechanism of the central nervous system (CNS), electrical stimulation of these areas may produce activity changes in the VN pathway in the brain stem and central structures, producing a modulation effect similar to iVNS.
Cymba conchae stimulation produced significant activation of the “classical” central vagal projections, e.g., widespread activity in the ipsilateral nucleus of the solitary tract, bilateral spinal trigeminal nucleus, dorsal raphe, locus coeruleus, and contralateral parabrachial area, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens. Bilateral activation of the paracentral lobule was also observed.
The earlobe is innervated by the greater auricular nerve, which is a composite nerve of cervical spinal nerves 2 and 3 and projects to the nucleus cuneatus in the brainstem.
Noninvasive electrostimulation of the Vagus nerves is used to treat a number of different conditions including epilepsy, depression, anxiety, insomnia, drug and alcohol dependency, pain management, as well as to boost associative memory. Effects of known noninvasive electrostimulation techniques of the Vagus nerves are short lasting. Combination of Cymba conchae stimulation and earlobe stimulation can increase the effect and make it last longer.
Examples of the Vagus nerves stimulation mechanisms are provided below.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 8,843,210 pertains to treating a variety of diseases and disorders that are primarily or at least partially driven by an imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain, such as asthma, COPD, depression, anxiety, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,874,205 pertains to a non-invasive electrical stimulation device shapes an elongated electric field of effect that can be oriented parallel to a long nerve, such as a Vagus nerve in a patient's neck, producing a desired physiological response in the patient.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,375,571 pertains to devices, systems and methods that allow a patient to self-treat a medical condition, such as migraine headache, by electrical noninvasive stimulation of a Vagus nerve.
US pub. 2016/109851 pertains to transdermal electrical stimulation (TES) applicators that are wearable and configured to attach to a subject's pinna (ear) and adapted to apply TES to modulate the subject's cognitive and/or physiological state.
US pub. 2018/050773 pertains to wearable device to improve exercise capacity via electrical stimulation applied to the skin of the outer ear in order to produce autonomic modulation.
Various systems and methodologies are known in the art. However, their structure and means of operation are different from the present disclosure. The other inventions fail to solve all the problems taught by the present disclosure. At least one embodiment of this invention is presented in the drawings below and will be described in more detail herein.